The car mangled in the crash on the Mainaguri police station premises on Sunday. Picture by Biplab Basak

Jalpaiguri, March 18: Six persons died and four were injured when an SUV and a truck collided head on while negotiating a bend on the national highway near Mainaguri just past midnight.

Most of the dead and the injured belonged to the same family and they were returning home after attending the last rites of a relative.

Police said the deceased were Bablu Roy, 38, his wife Uma, 25, Ganesh Roy, 26, Raju Barman, 18, Mamata Roy, 16, and driver of the car Nayan Barman, 19.

While Bablu, Uma and Ganesh were residents of Jabramari near Ranirhat in Mainaguri, the other three were from Soulmari village under Mekhliganj subdivision in Cooch Behar.

All the six were in a Mahindra Bolero. Of the four injured persons, three were in the car. The fourth one was truck driver Bishnu Oraon.

“All those in the car, except for the driver, were from the same family. They had gone to Ranirhat to attend the last rites of a relative. The crash took place when the SUV was negotiating a bend on NH31 around 12.30am,” said a police source.

The truck driver, who is under treatment at the Jalpaiguri district hospital, narrated the incident.

“It was past midnight and I was driving at a standard speed. The truck was laden with limestone dust and was going from Samsi in Bhutan to Changrabandha (India-Bangladesh border). The t ruck was taking a turn near Nayabandar when I found a Mahindra Bolero approaching the vehicle. Both the vehicles collided and the impact was so severe that the SUV caught fire,” said Bishnu who hails from Chamurchi tea estate in the Dooars.

People in the vicinity of the spot were woken up by the sound of the crash and rushed out of their homes. They found that four persons — Bablu, Ganesh, Raju and Nayan — had already died. The local people took the injured to the Jalpaiguri district hospital where Uma and Mamata died. The fire in the car was doused by the residents.

Mainaguri is 25km from Jalpaiguri. The post-mortem of all the six bodies was conducted at the district hospital here.

Rajat Bhattacharya, a surgeon at the district hospital, said the dead as well as the injured had suffered serious injuries on the heads and faces. “The truck driver is under treatment here and he is out of danger,” said the doctor.

Except Bishnu, all the injured have been shifted to a private nursing home in Siliguri.

Sachin Barman was at the district hospital to see his niece Alo Roy, one of the injured, this morning. He said they had been asked to reach Soulmari by 9pm.

“But the car left Mainaguri at 11pm or so. It seems that the vehicle was moving at high speed to make up for the lost time,” said Sachin.

Alo and Mamata were siblings.

Sugata Sen, the superintendent of police of Jalpaiguri, said a probe had started. “Six persons have died in the accident. The truck driver has been interrogated. He will be taken into custody if found guilty.”